Saturday, February 6, 2010

Highland Communities of Central Peru

Tschopik, Harry, Highland Communities of Central Peru: a Regional Survey, Smithsonian Institution, Institute of Social Anthropology, U.S. Govt. Print. Off. (Washington), 1947: 56 p. plates, maps. 26cm.

Words of Luis Eduardo Valcárcel Vizcarra, Peru's Minister of Public Education, taken from the Preface:
A people such as ours, which is becoming increasingly more conscious of its own cultural heritage, assumes a wary attitude toward outside influences, of course without going so far as to adopt such extreme conservatism as leads to an absurd rejection of all external contributions. In order that the discrimination which educators should exercise have a scientific foundation, it is not only advisable to have a satisfactory command of the modern cultural trends to be introduced, but also an increasingly clear knowledge of our own authentic social heritage, of the ways of life of our people throughout the country, of the functioning of political, juridical, economic, religious and other institutions, of the ways in which our people produce things of beauty together with those of utilitarian value, of how external factors influence the community and how the latter reacts, of the process of change in customs and the extent to which new methods and procedures are adopted, and of what is, in sum total, the cultural content analyzed in terms of its elements and seen from the point of view of its structure.

Review

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